RAINMAKER’S PRAYERS, Align with Global Harmony
CHAPTERS:
Prayer: “Communion with the divine is a deeply personal and mysterious experience…Some chant their prayers and some dance their prayers and some paint or perform or swim their prayers.” Sherry Ruth Anderson & Patricia Hopkins, The Feminine Face of God.
Ceremony: “Ceremony—the harmonious blend of symbols—invites a confluence of spiritual rhythms, universal principles and archetypal forces.” Mircea Eliade, Dictionary of Symbols.
Sacred Space: “The sacred is not the space itself, but what happens there.”
David Morgan, Encyclopedia of Religion II.
Grounding: “Forces greater than the intellect guide evolution. When we consciously align with them we harmonize with the process.” J. Lotterhand.
Connection: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” John Muir.
Indigenous Wisdom: “If you love something enough, it will talk with you.” George Washington Carver.
Co-creation: “Co-creative science is the study of reality and how it works by man and nature (nature intelligence) working together in a partnership, as peers. Machaelle Wright www.perelandra-ltd.com
Tools: “This earth is a shared adventure. Healing begins with ceremony. Each human has contracted agreements with many others, seen and unseen.” Ariana Houle, Conversations with Nature.
Ripples: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver.
Resources: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. we ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your Playing small does not serve in the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. we were born to make manifest the Glory of god that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.
Nelson Mandela
1994 Inaugural Address
My hands thump a strange rhythm on my bottle-shaped Udu and I feel my great-great African grandmother sitting beside me. My roots include Irish, English, French, Sioux and Afro-American.
Besides freckles, a wide nose and curly red hair, my ancestors have endowed me with rhythm. Catch me doing dishes sometime and you'll hear me thumping out a rhythm on the cups, plates, pots and pans-my drumsticks a stainless steel knife in each hand.
"Sound, rhythm, energy and individuality," I read in Peter Elbow's Writing with Power" is basic to a writer's voice." Mmm, drumming and writing share the same elements. Another writer, Robert Hass, "thinks of rhythm as a power because it has direct access to our unconscious and because it can enter our minds and bodies and make us move."* Hass is talking about the rhythm of language. However, the same unconscious, motivating power is also found in rhythm from drums.
A friend, told me that she does drums prior to writing. Although I light a candle, say a prayer and ring a little bell to bring my mind to focus, I longed to drum before writing. Then, while house sitting for friends, I borrowed their elk skin instrument and drummed before each writing session, drumming when frustrated with the process, drumming when overwhelmed with numerous anthology to do's. Drumming helped me center and enabled me to return refreshed to Rainmaker's Prayers Anthology.
"I want my own drum." I saw a Native American drum at an auction and decide to bid. It went for $300. Too much for my budget. Then, in From Mud to Music, I recalled the mid-eastern, hourglass shaped ceramic Dhoumbeks. But, one musician warned that as the leather dried, it pulled too tight, cracking his ceramic bases. I read about Udus, water bottle drums from Nigeria and, since I'm a potter, decided to make an Udu. Nigerians shape the Udu with clay coils. I don't like manipulating long coils so, I decided to use the potter's wheel to form my Udu. "Start with nine pounds of clay," the Mud to Music author said. I can barely manage seven. Inspiration! Make bowls and put them
together. Bingo. I've made hundreds of bowls. I love their round utility.
"Instead of trying to match circumference to circumference," my ceramic instructor advised, "make several similar bowls and pick two that match. Use the rest for gifts." I ended up with four matching bowls. I put those together, added a cylinder neck, a bottom stand and decoration. I want my drums to be art pieces as well as musical instruments.
Now, a novice drummer, I surprise myself as I sit with my brightly glazed "Udu." This long necked, rounded belly ceramic drum echoes and reverberates. My hands, palms and fingers cup, slap and beat, producing different tones. "Do-ray-me-fa-so," I laugh, knowing that the notes aren't a musical scale, but five percussion sounds.
My hands fly over the Udu's neck and belly holes. Once again, like swimming, gardening, painting and writing, my hands provide pleasure. I drum in the morning, drum when feeling scattered, drum to focus, drum to think, and each time, whether for five minutes or fifteen, I feel centered, peaceful and present. Mickey Hart writes in Drumming at the Edge of Magic, that for shamans, a drum becomes a vibrational vehicle of transport. I like that idea and file it under "advanced drumming."
Drumming creates an ancient rhythm similar to the nearby ocean tides which pound and reverberate up the beach, through the ground to my cottage. Drumming is my heartbeat and breath, the unconscious power of life itself.
*The Writer's Chronicle, Vol 40, #3 pg 86.
